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Outreach activities
  November 2013 - QMUL  
  Kiran Kumar Chereddy (ESR at the University Catholique de Louvain - UCL) gave an interview for the first Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) Newsletter in November 2013 (https://www.mariecuriealumni.eu/newsletters). The article is entitled: "Five top tips: getting on top of Marie Curie Action administration".
The Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) is promoting an active community of researchers benefiting or who have benefited from the European Commission's Marie Curie programme. MCAA provides researchers with relevant information and services to support their career development, and establish mutually beneficial relationships among over 50 000 researchers across Europe and beyond. The Association boosts a networking spirit of sharing knowledge and research achievements among Marie Curie researchers, and engages them actively in the running and growth of the association.
 

  September 2013 - CNBC  
  Josephine Blersch, ESR at CNBC Portugal, and her scientists colleagues challenged themselves with theatre at the European Researchers' Night 2013. The theme of the night of investigators was “Future”. After discussions, the team chose to translate the 200 year old story Frankenstein into a contemporary scientific play. The researchers translated it from English to Portuguese and back from Portuguese to English. They also translated Frankenstein´s 200 year old problems to the problems of today. The event was a big success among the public with the songs, the thunders and all of sudden the awaking creature made a kid running away in tears. Not only serving shocking features, but also advancements in technology and funding. Frankenstein developed in the play from a scientist steeling body parts from the cemetery to a passionate stem cell engineer, supported by European funds. (full story on the issue 7 of the NANODRUG Newsletter).  

  June 2013 - QMUL  
  Dr. Marina Resmini organised the annual scientific outreach event “Scientist for a day” at Queen Mary University of London. 90 children between 9 and 11 year old from Belleville School London attended the event which involved an introduction lecture on chemistry and some scientific demonstrations. This was followed by laboratory work engaging the children to prepare samples and collecting data following a scientific methodology. To finish all children had to write up their results, observations and conclusions. All pupils received a certificate from Queen Mary University of London. The Marie Curie Fellows and other researchers from the Resmini Group were actively proactive in preparing for this event and assisting in the supervision during these fun 2 days.
 

  June 2013 - CNRS  
  Nocturnes de la recherche: This gathering occurs once a year at night and is organised by Compiègne University of Technology. The aim is to give an opportunity to undergraduate and master students studying at the University to visit the research center and to know what type of research is being done in the different departments. The director of the Enzyme and Cell Engineering Laboratory, Karsten Haupt, and two more students including Jacqueline Maximilien, volunteered to represent this lab. Prof Karsten Haupt first gave an overview of the research areas under investigation to the students, before they were divided into smaller groups. The students were able to view the labs, discuss current projects and ask questions about working in the field of scientific research.
 

  October 2012 - MJR  
  Asli Arslan (ESR at MJR) gave a presentation "Being a scientist and What is nano?". to pupils in the Elementary School Sonnenfeld Homburg, Germany in collaboration with Mrs Koeb and Julian Schichtel..
 

  November 2012 - CNBC  
  Michela Comune, ESR at the Center for Neurosciences and Cell Biology (CNBC), University of Coimbra, encouraged members of Dr Lino Ferreira’s research group to help her with the activities of “The Science and Technology Week” organized by CIENCIA VIVA. They gave a tour of their laboratories in Biocant Park and explained their research projects to pupils and teachers from the private school in Cantanhede (Escola Pedro Teixeira), of the 9th grade (15 years old).
The Ferreira group gave a tour in the Tissue Engineering and Matera Labs. They also gave talks about the ongoing projects and research interests of the group, mainly focusing on the use of nanotechnology for drug delivery and cell differentiation. After the talks the pupils were taken to the laboratories where they could have a hands on session with nanofilms, seeing beating cardiac myocytes under a microscope and have a look at all the equipments needed to make and characterize nanoparticles. The pupils were impressed and asked lots of questions. The teachers were really satisfied with the activities. For the group, it was nice to see a strong and true interest in student’s eyes. Beyond the overview of their work, the students also learnt that it is very important to speak and understand English in a proper way to communicate with people from all over the world. They did a great job altogether communicating and teaching science which is of the utmost importance!
 

  October 2012 - MJR  
  Asli Arslan (ESR at MJR) gave a presentation "Being a scientist and What is nano?". The event was organized for students in Grundschule Sonnenfeld in collaboration with Mrs Koeb and Julian Schichtel.
 

  October 2012 - MJR  
  Asli Arslan (ESR at MJR) attended the “Sieben-Labore-Tour Herbst”. In this event, young students spent time at Saarland University laboratories and performed some experiments with the aim of promoting the interest in science and Technology.
 

  October 2012 - CNRS  
  CNRS participated at ‘Fête de la Science’ (10-14th October 2012) in order to bring science to the public in a friendly, simple and informal way. This yearly event which lasts 4 days including one weekend aims at promoting science for students of primary and secondary schools in the Picardy region (accompanied by their teachers) and for the general public (family outing during the week-end). Researchers from Prof. K. Haupt department presented several conferences on for example ‘Microorganisms and odors’, ‘Biorefinery: life without petrol’, ‘To be a plant, little survival kit in a hostile medium’, ‘The bioartificial liver’ and live workshops on ‘Compatible biomaterials (prosthesis, implants..) for the body’ and ‘Recycling of plant biomass (rape, sunflower, linen…)’. This event gathered 10,000 visitors this year.
 

  September 2012 - QMUL  
  Queen Mary, University of London, QMUL, organized the annual European Commission Researchers’ Night 2012. The programme contained various and continuous activities throughout the day sharing and showcasing research talent with local people, local artists, research academics and students. The Resmini Group attended the event to meet other researchers to discuss and exchange their experience. The presentations and hands-on activities where fun and made people more excited about science.
 

  July-August 2012 - QMUL  
  During the summer 2012 Dr. Marina Resmini hosted in her laboratory a young and very enthusiastic student. Alina is a pupil at the Battersea Park School of London where she studies A level chemistry, biology and mathematics. She originally grew up in Romania but moved to the UK two years ago with her family.
Alina joined the Resmini Group in July for six weeks. During this period she was supported by a bursary offered by the Nuffield Foundation Science Bursaries for students in the first year of a post-16 science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) course.
Although she is only 17 years old, Alina showed a strong passion for science and in particular for chemistry and she was keen to learn. She was supervised by Dr. Resmini from whom she learned the great mysteries of organic chemistry! But not only…
With the help of the researchers in the laboratory, Alina developed her own project on the preparation of nanoparticles for transdermal drug delivery. To address this goal, she first acquired basic knowledge in carrying out elementary techniques that allowed her to prepare nanogels and nanoparticles, performing multistep organic synthesis as well as physico-chemical characterization of the obtained material.
By working on such a multidisciplinary project, she had the opportunity to understand the importance of liaising chemical approaches to material preparation with biological problems, in order to develop novel efficient nanomaterials for biomedical applications.
The project was divided into three main parts dedicated to the acquisition of skills in:
- analytical techniques;
- nanomaterials preparation and characterization;
- organic synthesis.
Despite the short period of time, Alina carried out quite e a lot of work, acquiring fundamental knowledge of organic chemistry, but also of analytical chemistry and biology, thanks to the constant support of knowledgeable scientists in the group.
In addition to all of this, this experience gave the young student the opportunity to get in touch with outstanding scientists who are dedicating their life to research and see what this means. By being in contact with those researchers, Alina learned how to approach scientific problems, how to use the scientific literature and how to write a scientific laboratory book, reporting all the details of her working day.
All of this has been done thanks to Marina’ support for outreach activities in science. Dr Resmini is a STEM ambassador and she strongly supports the promotion of science to young people.
This training gave Alina additional motivation to continue studying chemistry, a subject that will offer plenty of opportunities for a successful career.
 

  June 2012 - CNBC  
  In June 2012 Michela Comune, ESR at CNBC, gave the second presentation in the “Centro de ciência junior” managed by Margarida in the presence of 18-19 years old students and their professor. The students enrolled in the last year of the high school before starting the University, so one of the aims of these meeting was to stimulate their interests for biosciences and nanotechnologies fields. In this 2nd meeting, Michela preferred spending more time in the experimental activity with the students and giving a shorter talk. The presentation was about the application of gold nanoparticles in skin diseases treatment due to their easy functionalization with therapeutic molecules. She explained a little bit of her ongoing PhD project that is related to this subject.
As promised, after the presentation, she started to make gold nanoparticles with the students in the “Centro de ciência junior” laboratory by using a reducing agent and hydrogen tetrachloride (HAuCl4). When the reducing agent is added, the Au3+ ions are reduced and gold atoms are formed in the solution and then particles are formed. This formation of gold nanoparticles can be observed by a change in color. Indeed, the first goal of the experiment was to show to the students the gold NPs color that in colloidal solution is red because of their peak of absorbance in 530 nm.
The second goal was to explain and demonstrate to students what happen in the solution when NaCl is added. In fact when a strong electrolyte is added to the solution, the high concentration of ions screens the repulsive electrostatic forces between nanoparticles and the gold nanoparticles aggregate. At this state the gold nanoparticles solution appears blue.
Students helped Michela to synthesize gold nanoparticles solutions and their task was to pay attention to the change in color and the time of the reaction. Before finishing, students discussed the results with Michela and the teachers Margarida, Angela and Margarida. The appointments is for the next October when the activity of the Centro de ciência junior starts again.
 

  May 2012 - QMUL  
  On the 21st and the 22nd May 2012 Dr. Marina Resmini organised two science days at a London Primary School, involving children from 5 to 11 years old.
To support these activities, Dr. Resmini’s group including the Marie Curie Fellows dedicated their time and knowledge to guide the young children through exciting experiments with the aim of attracting them to science.
On the first day, the first group of children from year 1 and 2 performed the nappy experiment. The students worked in small teams each supervised by a member of Dr. Resmini’s team. The second group from year 4 performed experiment on the preparation of slime. The third group was comprised of very young scientists… just 5 years old! Even though they were very young, those little children got really involved in the “magic” taco sauce experiments. Each collaborator of Dr. Resmini was responsible for one group of 6 children, helping them to perform the experiments.
On the second day, children of year 5 and 6 performed the nappy experiment, but this time the students did not get any help from the team and they had to write protocols like real scientists! They worked in teams and they performed the experiment twice to test their ability to reproduce the results. At the end they had to write a report and the best team was awarded a certificate and a special pen from the UK Royal Society of Chemistry.
This scientific event was aimed mostly to bring young people closer to science and technology. The study of these subjects benefits all of us whether we realise it or not. Scientists like Dr. Resmini and her team, have a very important role to play in inspiring the next generation to see these areas as exciting - both through sharing experiences and offering young people the chance to get involved in practical work in a real-life scientific environment.
 

  May 2012 - QMUL  
  In May 2012 Dr Resmini organised a 'Scientist for a day' event at Queen Mary, University of London. 31 Children from the Holy Ghost Catholic Primary School in London attended the event and carried out simple experiments in the lab, supervised by the PI, the Marie Curie Fellow and researchers from Dr Resmini's Group.
The aim of this visit was to engage young people to see science subjects with a fresh perspective and engage their interest and imagination in new ways.
The children were divided into groups and were provided with instructions, materials and tools to perform a real science investigation project: which ingredient(s) in the taco sauce really do clean a penny? Dr Resmini explained to the junior scientists the experiment, providing them with a clear and easy procedure to follow like experienced scientists. Each team of kids was supervised by one of the assistants. First, the junior scientists started proving that the taco sauce really cleans pennies. The next step was to find out which cleaning agent(s) in the taco sauce causes it to clean? They were very interested and started to run multiple tests and isolated one variable at a time to see which one was the real cleaning agent for the pennies. As nothing happened with the individual ingredients, the curious young minds tried a combination of ingredients. They managed to isolate the variables and eventually they reached the conclusion that the combination of vinegar and salt cleaned the pennies. To finish off they wrote a report with all their observations during the experiment and their report sheets were assessed by a panel of scientists. The teams were judged on 3 main areas: 1. Very clean and neat handwriting, 2. Good answers presented in a logical way, 3. Evidence of precision in doing the experiments.
 

  February 2012 - CNBC  
  In February 2012 Michela Comune, ESR at CNBC, was invited to give a presentation about the applications of Nanomedicine inthe “Centro de ciência junior” laboratory in Biocant Park (Cantanhede, Coimbra). The “Centro de ciência junior” is a laboratory where secondary school students spend their afternoon participating actively in experiments specifically designed for different age groups, where they can learn more about Biosciences. The aim of this Center is to add the experimental component to the Biosciences teaching so that students are able to better understand the importance of biosciences. The “Centro de ciência junior” wants to attract students to the scientific research field, and in this lab each student can be a scientist and feel like real researchers and entrepreneurs.
The goal of Michela’s talk was to teach students what nanotechnology is and the meaning of nanomedicine. This gave them an overview about the different applications. She explained the benefits of going and using “nano” in biomedical applications and discussed the use of nanoparticles for drug delivery in cancer therapy. She also focused their attention on the use of gold nanoparticles that, thanks to their unique properties, are generating an increasing interest in biomedical application for treatments of diseases.
She gave a talk to a class of twenty 16-17 year olds students and their teachers who showed a keen interest in her topic and who asked many questions. Students wanted to know more about the synthesis of gold nanoparticles and the optical properties because they remained fascinated by the change in color observed when in nanoparticulate format. Teachers asked questions about the drug delivery mechanism of the nanoparticles and surface modification. They wanted to know more about the current research into the application of nanoparticles for the treatment of diseases
Michela arranged an appointment in the next months for a another presentation and to do a short experiment in which they will synthesise gold nanoparticles and analyze the change in color and UV spectra with them.
 

  December 2011 - QMUL  
  In December 2011 Dolça Fabregat, a PhD Student at Marina Resmini Research Group, QMUL, gave an interesting and inspiring scientific talk at Saint Paul’s Way Trust School in London to students aged 12-14 years old who had already chosen to specialize in science. The talk was entitled “Drug delivery systems for Skin Disease” and was made especially for this age group using lots of illustrations and props to make sure they would understand nanotechnology and the importance of the drug carrier to achieve therapeutic effect. The aim of the presentation was to motivate students to choose a career in science.
 

  November 2011 - CNRS  
  Week of Research and Innovation organised by the Regional council of Picardy Region, in Saint Quentin, 22 - 25 november 2011. Researchers from CNRS have presented two posters on their research activities on molecular imprinting technology and chemical sensors, destinated to the general public.
 

  October 2011 - QMUL  
  Dr Marina Resmini was invited to give a presentation and talk about her Marie Curie Career and the European Commission funded research projects at the 3rd European Innovation Summit conference which took place in the European Parliament in Brussels.
This year’s Summit was organized for the third time in partnership with the EU Presidency, the European Commission and the European Parliament.
The Summit conferences provided a unique opportunity to present and debate the key topics along the innovation value chain from education to internationalization of companies. The focus of the Brussels event was on the need for talent, the role of business and transatlantic innovation cooperation. The summit ended with a fresh discussion on the future of innovation in Europe and lunch debates on wireless communications and EU-Russia innovation cooperation.
The speakers’ presentations and discussions addressed most of the important aspects related to the complex issue of innovation thus providing a wealth of knowledge to be further exploited.
Dr Resmini spoke in the session titled “Europe’s Future Nobel Prize Winners” which was attended by over 30 students aged 16-18 from the local “European School” all interested in studying chemitry. It was a wonderful opportunity for a good Q & A session not only with the students but also with the teachers. link conference to website
 





 

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